The post is based on two pieces previously published in the Rainbow Bridge.

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Katherine Inglis, my mother, died here in her bungalow at Findhorn at 8.45am Sunday April 22, 2007. My brother Peter and I, two of her four children, were with her as she left, easily, I think – two big breaths and she was gone. As someone said in the Sanctuary gathering later that day, she was always efficient.

She had known she was dying since the previous Tuesday and had chosen to stay at home amongst her family, friends and community, rather than go to hospital. We discussed together what she wanted for her service. “A party!” was the first thing she said. So we all did our best to provide that. I think we succeeded.

Katherine had lived here for 21 years, but for 14 years before that she was a Findhorn beacon in South Africa. After her first visit to the community in 1972, she began a Friends of Findhorn Group in Cape Town, established a Findhorn ‘library’ of books and tapes, and organised several Findhorn tours, the first being for Peter and Eileen Caddy and myself in 1977. She visited the community periodically, for between a few weeks and a year, and after I joined in 1973, we exchanged letters every week till she arrived to live in 1986.

Very active in the community at first – she worked, among other places, in the Cluny Dining Room, the General Office, and the then Phoenix Trading Centre – as the years went by she became less active, but always stayed involved and interested. She was a permanent fixture at community meetings. She served for two years on the Foundation Core Group, and later on the NFA Council. She was particularly nurturing of the spiritual core of the community, working with the Sanctuary Group for several years and, up until her death, was responsible for compiling and updating the community’s Spiritual Directory. And she was renowned for her humorous readings at community sharings.

Family was very important to her, and Findhorn became her extended family. She consistently encouraged both the collective and the individual parts of it – people, plants, businesses, buildings, supporting many community ventures and making generous and quiet donations and contributions. She was particularly supportive of the youth, forming close relationships with several young people who grew up here – though she did take to shaking her stick at boys speeding around on their bikes when she became less steady on her feet.

But her presence continued steady till the end. Thank you, Katherine. God bless you.

Katherine’s Journey to Findhorn.

Katherine’s path to Findhorn began in 1939 when she was a medical student at St Andrews University (she was there for only one year as she returned to South Africa, where she was born, a year into the second world war). Her Zoology professor at St Andrews was D’Arcy Thompson. Twenty years later, living with her husband David and four children in what was then Basutoland, she met a visiting artist from South Africa, Molly D’Arcy Thompson, who turned out to be his daughter.

Then, ten years on in 1969, after the death of her husband, Katherine was living in Cape Town, where she became involved with the Christian Institute, an ecumenical and multi-racial organisation opposed to the apartheid system in South Africa. Here she re-met Molly; they would have tea together occasionally, and one day Molly produced a booklet by David Spangler: Vision of Findhorn in World Transformation. She had just returned from visiting her sister Barbara at Findhorn (whom some of you will remember as a long-term and much-loved member of the community!)

In 1972 Katherine spent a day at the Findhorn Community while on a visit to relatives in Scotland. The following week she took Mary, who had joined her in Scotland, to visit. The two of them then spent a week in a cottage on the edge of the Yorkshire moors immersed in all the early Findhorn literature.

Thus began a relationship with the community that was to last the rest of her life. For the next 14 years, she was a Findhorn beacon in South Africa. Mary joined the community in 1973, and from then until Katherine moved to the community in 1986, the two of them exchanged letters every week. Katherine visited the community when she could, for periods of between a couple of months and a year. In South Africa she began a Friends of Findhorn group in 1974, established a Findhorn ‘library’ of books and tapes, and organised several ‘Findhorn’ tours. The first, for Peter and Eileen Caddy and Mary in 1977, was initiated by Peter while Katherine was visiting Findhorn in 1976. She went back to Cape Town and told the Findhorn group (all women at that point) the tour was going to happen. “Who is going to pay for it?” they asked. “We are!” she replied – and so they all started making marmalade and selling it to each other to get the funding started. In the end the tour was a huge success, with nearly 900 people coming to the introductory talk in Cape Town.

In 1986 Katherine came to live at Findhorn, and bought her bungalow R58 in March ’87.

Lyrics from a song by Ann Mortifee (used with permission)

Mary Inglis

Came to join the Findhorn Foundation in 1973. Born in Scotland, grew up in Lesotho, educated in South Africa. Still lives in the Findhorn Community.